


Cooking for Beginners

by glorious_spoon



Series: Tumblr/Twitter Prompt Fic [45]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bad Cooking, Gen, Humor, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21605683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: "Are you sure it's supposed to smell like that?" Dustin asked.
Relationships: Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson
Series: Tumblr/Twitter Prompt Fic [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1313993
Comments: 12
Kudos: 38





	Cooking for Beginners

**Author's Note:**

> For a Tumblr prompt from sternenblumen, who asked for Stranger Things, Thanksgiving for Dustin and/or Steve.

Dustin popped the top off of his beer and leaned against the counter to watch from a safe distance as Steve peered in the oven window again. “Are you sure it’s supposed to smell like that?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, sounding offended. It was pretty hard to take him seriously with the gingham apron he was wearing over his artfully faded concert t-shirt, though. Both hands were swathed in oven mitts, and his hair was starting to wilt a little from the heat. “Trust me, man. I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah,” Dustin said, sipping dubiously at his beer, which was unpleasantly warm. That was probably technically his fault; he should have put them in the fridge when he got here, but he’d been distracted by the slowly unspooling disaster that was Steve Harrington attempting to cook Thanksgiving dinner. It was the thought that counted, probably. “But have you ever actually cooked a turkey before?”

“How hard can it be?”

“I’m just saying, I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to smell like melted plastic. Did you take the shrink-wrap off?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Steve said impatiently. “I’m not actually an idiot, you know.”

Dustin didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. “Okay, but something’s definitely melting in there.”

Steve shoved his hair out of his eyes with one bemittened hand and tugged the oven door open. Smoke billowed out, and the acrid smell of burning plastic was stronger now. Dustin backed up, waving a hand uselessly in front of his face. “ _Dude._ It smells like a tire fire, what did you _do_ to it?”

“Nothing!” Steve was holding his t-shirt up over his nose, poking gingerly at the misshapen lump of uncooked turkey just visible through the smoke. There was a clatter; the smell of burning plastic got stronger, and then he said, “Aw, _shit._ ”

“That’s not encouraging,” Dustin informed him, taking another step back as if the turkey might suddenly come back to life and try to eat the pair of them. Which wouldn’t actually be the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him over a holiday dinner, but he was really hoping it wouldn’t come to that now, especially since the nail bat was locked in the trunk of Steve’s car and Nancy and her assorted weaponry were on the other side of the country.

“Yeah, uh.” Steve shoved the tray back into the oven, then slammed the door shut and turned the dial off. “Did you know that they put a _bag_ inside the fucking bird?”

“A plastic bag?” Dustin asked, his heart sinking. “Oh, man.”

“Yeah.” Steve tugged his oven mitts off, then yanked the apron off, further disarranging his hair. “I give up. I fucking give up.”

He looked both frazzled and forlorn, wreathed in the unpleasant-smelling smoke still seeping out of the oven. Dustin took a hasty sip of his beer before he could crack up laughing, although by the narrow-eyed look Steve was giving him, his amusement was still entirely too visible on his face.

“Um,” he managed finally. “There’s a Chinese restaurant down the block that looked like it was still open?”

“Fine,” Steve sighed finally. “Chinese food it is.”

“My treat,” Dustin said generously as the fire alarm finally started going off.


End file.
